Powell ups pressure on Iraq as war preparations gather pace

December 31 2002

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned the standoff with Baghdad "can't go on indefinitely," as Iraq's neighbours made contingency plans in the event of a war.

"I think that this can't go on indefinitely," Powell told NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, adding that the United States would wait to hear from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix before taking any decisions.

"It's a situation we are monitoring closely," he added.

Powell insisted US President George W Bush wanted a peaceful solution but said that US troops were prepared to take action against Baghdad.

"We are taking prudent actions, positioning our forces so that they will be ready to do whatever might be required," he told Fox News yesterday. ");document.write("

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In an apparent U-turn by the kingdom's rulers, Saudi Arabia has reportedly agreed to let US forces use airbases and a key command centre on its soil, a move that would boost a US-led campaign both logistically and diplomatically.

Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier the USS George Washington and another carrier have been ordered to prepare to leave for the Gulf within four days, according to US television reports.

The Washington Post reported that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered a significant deployment of ground forces, combat aircraft and logistics support to the region -- usually the last phase of war preparations.

Some 15,000 US troops are already based in neighbouring Kuwait, where Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Fahd al-Sabah said he was ready to implement an emergency plan to guarantee oil production in the event of war.

"I cannot go into the details of this plan, but I can guarantee that production will continue, exports will continue and production of fuel needed locally and for export will continue," Sheikh Ahmed told reporters.

Likewise, Powell told NBC's "Meet the Press," that any invasion force would take special care to protect Iraq's oilfields "and make sure that they are used to benefit the people of Iraq and are not destroyed or damaged by a failing regime on the way out the door."

The assurance followed an assessment by US intelligence officials that the Iraqi military was likely to resort to a "scorched earth" strategy, in the event of an invasion.

Washington recently built a new command centre in Qatar and had been preparing to coordinate military action from there, after Saudi Arabia initially indicated it would not allow US forces to launch from its soil, as they did in the 1991 Gulf War.

Qatari Health Minister Hajar Ahmed Hajar denied reports that a recent decision to draft foreign doctors and nurses was linked to war preparations.

The denial came after newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported that 350 Bosnian doctors and nurses with combat experience had been recruited in readiness for violent reprisals by Iraq once the war starts.

Riyadh appeared yesterday also to have reversed its position.

The New York Times reported that US commanders have been given private assurances they will be allowed to run an air war from a sophisticated command centre at Prince Sultan Air Base outside the Saudi capital.

"I firmly believe the Saudis will give us all the cooperation we need, and every indication I have is we're getting pretty much what we've asked for," Air Force chief of staff John Jumper told the newspaper.

As war clouds gathered, there was anxiety in other Middle Eastern countries about the economic effect of a regional war.

Jordanian foreign minister Marwan Moasher warned that the region faced a bleak 2003 if Washington launched a war on Iraq amid continuing violence in the Palestinian territories.

And Egypt forecast that revenues from shipping through the Suez Canal -- its number two foreign exchange earner -- would fall by 10 percent in the event of a US-led war.

In Iraq, UN arms experts began their 30th day of inspections, visiting two sites in and near Baghdad.

Other inspectors examined a list of scientists involved in Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missile programs provided by Baghdad on Saturday ahead of a UN deadline.

A possible new source of tension between Iraq and the United States is the question of whether the inspectors will use their powers, as Washington has been pressing, to whisk scientists out of Iraq, along with their families, so they can be interviewed without fear of reprisals at home.

The inspectors have already interviewed two Iraqi scientists in Baghdad, one of whom made clear he would object strongly to being taken out of the country.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein meanwhile gathered top officials for consultations. The state-run media gave no indication of what had been discussed.

An Iraqi parliamentarian said the Iraqi people "will defend their land and their independence if they come under attack."

"US threats to attack Iraq, based on contriving flimsy pretexts to the effect that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, do not frighten the Iraqi people," he said, quoted by the official INA news agency.

"An aggression against Iraq would amount to an aggression against the Arab nation, because it would aim at controlling (the region's) wealth and oil resources," Hammadi told visiting Lebanese trade union boss Ghassan Ghosn.

An unidentified plane flew over Baghdad yesterday, emitting a loud boom as it apparently broke the sound barrier in the second such incident in a month.

Meanwhile, US Central Command said US and British planes yesterday attacked two Iraqi military radar bases in the no-fly zone in southern Iraq "in response to Iraqi acts against coalition aircraft" policing the zone.